Editor’s Letter: Do the Next Right Thing

Featured photo by Jave Bjorkman: Quarantine chic with my children, Kitty and Henry, at a photo shoot featuring pieces of Wini McQueen’s exquisite work in her back yard.

What gives you hope? Why does hope matter?  

Right now, are you taking the opportunity to do the next right thing, breathe, focus on what we know, and be with your people?  

Have you found ways to celebrate, anyway? 

Together, we’ve experienced closings, postponements and cancellations. Our spirits are shaken. In the midst of this surreal time, we remain hopeful for what cannot be stifled: our community spirit.  

Life feels paused in many places. Yet the narrative is different in other spaces.  

I’m betting you’ve learned about your partner in a new way. Held your children longer. Missed your mother a little more. Worried over your life a lot more. Looked for beauty more than usual. Found new meaning in an old song. Noticed nature in a new way. Seen people helping each other. Ached for a hug. Asked how you could help more than normal. Learned about yourself, including some good and maybe some not-so-good habits. Hosted a virtual instead of an in-person gathering, marriage, or dance party (me, for my 36th birthday on March 22! It was epic. Want the playlist for a dance party wherever you are? Tune in here.). 

I am eager to see the humanity, the truth, and the beauty that arises on the other side of a pandemic. Will it open us to be more of the people the world is calling us to be?  

In response to the Coronavirus pandemic, as a locally owned business, Macon Magazine is steady. We remain committed to sharing our network of advertisers, the great stories, and supporting this entire community.  

For more than 34 years, Macon Magazine remains true to our mission to enhance our community with the best journalism, stories and photography, ultimately engaging our audience to fall more in love with Macon. We aim to cultivate and produce a publication that makes us more intentionally connected to this community. 

We will promote the positive. We will give readers something to do for good, to know for good, to find connection in the face of separateness and fear, together. We will share the ways that we can, even now, build each other up.  

Social distance will not keep us distant. I hope you’ll feel it in these pages. 

We are here, more than ever, to tell the stories of our resilient community. We  will share and support local business with our audience via the magazine, on social media and in person, with an elbow bump.  

I think hope matters because it gives us vision for what we can become.  

And, I see you — through your grief, anxiety, and worry. Together, through listening, calling, and checking in on one another, we are helping each other during this time. 

Take care of yourself and your neighbor, with grace. Be the beloved community, my people. 

With love, appreciation and a peace sign,  

Susannah and all of us at Macon Magazine 

Our at-home selfie during quarantine.

First Native American United States Poet Laureate Joy Harjo read this poem to a most energetic, engaged group of mostly students at Middle Georgia State University this February. I heard it then, and find even deeper meaning now.

Once the World Was Perfect

By Joy Harjo

 

Me, mesmerized by the energy of Joy Harjo when she spoke with a most palpable sense of connection to the students at MGSU.